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Fit and healthy students stand to live higher quality, longer and more active lives

A consultation launched earlier today by not-for-profit health body ukactive will look to shape future policy for children’s sport and physical activity in the UK.

The consultation will seek written evidence from anyone involved in children’s fitness – from health experts, activity providers, government stakeholders and education professionals to parents and children themselves – and chart the way physical activity could be better delivered across the nation.

The responses will feed into a new report – to be published at ukactive’s National Summit in September – which will offer a wide-lens view of the opportunities to improve children’s health.

Launching the consultation at the 2018 Kids CEO Forum today (20 February) at City Academy Birmingham, ukactive chair Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson called for submissions from across the children’s activity sector.

“Children’s health is key to their happiness and wellbeing, and healthy children are more likely to grow into the healthy, productive adults our society needs,” Baroness Grey-Thompson said.

“It takes a whole community to raise a child and that is why ukactive needs your help to build the evidence base and shape the physical activity landscape for young people.

“By sharing your success stories from our playgrounds, activity centres and communities, you will be telling the UK – and those operating in the corridors of power – what really works for our kids.”

She added that she hoped the new report will have the same effect as the publication of Generation Inactive had in 2015.

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“The new FIBO CAMPUS will have 13 themed sessions, ranging from fitness and health through personnel management to digitisation, offering a line-up for visitors – be they gym operators, physiotherapists or trainers”

“A couple of years ago, I attended a women’s leadership summit at IHRSA. I really enjoyed being in a room with female business leaders and left inspired to do more of that kind of activity, but couldn’t find an outlet”

“We’ve spent many hours drawing up our values as a company. The first is ‘Conquer your journey’, the next is ‘Train for tomorrow’, which is all about recovery and good technique and the last one is ‘Protect our soul’, which is about doing everything ethically and sustainably.”

“That’s the biggest change I see in the fitness industry now: these young people come up with a new concept and they get capital to launch it, as opposed to the old days when you were under-financed.””

“The capitalist model may create wealth in the short term, but if it doesn’t address the broader issue of serving society, it risks losing its licence to operate. If inequality grows, that might force more difficult change”

“In London, people are familiar with the boutique concept, but elsewhere it’s still relatively new, so initially it was a challenge to educate people in Manchester about our benefits, when they were used to paying budget club prices”